Shades of Trust

  The doctor’s face showed no surprise. “Well then. Alistair Connor, I don’t want you to become nervous with what I’m going to tell you.”

  “Too late for that, Doctor Ben. I’ve been freaked out since our appointment in December.” Alistair almost laughed. But his doctor and friend had such a stern expression on his face that he knew this was no time for humor.

  “My boy, I received confirmation that the moxifloxacin was effective and that the bacteria was eliminated. Nonetheless, it took too long to diagnose and the damage…treatments are evolving and maybe in the future they can reverse what’s happened…”

  “You’re scaring me, Doctor Ben.” Alistair shifted on the sofa and leaned toward the doctor to better look at his soft brown eyes.

  The doctor thinned his lips and looked away for an instant.

  When he looked back, his face showed a piercing sadness. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Alistair Connor. I’ve known you all your life and I love you as if you were my own son.” He shook his bald head and a cold dreariness sifted through Alistair’s bones. “But the test results arrived this morning. I still had hope…” He inhaled deeply, rested his hand over Alistair’s and blurted, “Son, I’m sorry, but the disease has made you infertile.”

  Atwood House

  Sunday, March 21, 2010

  8:06 p.m.

  “She slept, finally,” Sophia said, entering the TV room with two wine glasses hanging upside-down on her fingers and a bottle of Romanée Conti. She halted as she saw Alistair’s sleeping face. He was sitting on the sofa, his head resting on a pillow, bent sideways, and his bare feet propped on one of the low square velvet ottomans placed near the sofa.

  In the peaceful gloom of the room, he looked younger than his thirty-five years, with his absurdly long lashes making shadows on his cheeks and his long bangs falling over his forehead. The book he had taken from her shelf to read had fallen on the floor.

  Sophia approached quietly and put the bottle and the glasses on the side table soundlessly. She bent down to pick up the book and frowned when she saw the title. Les Misérables? Why so sad, Alistair Connor?

  She put the book next to the wine and served herself, admiring the handsome man on her sofa. She found it unsettling to see him like this, so defenseless and unguarded.

  Sophia didn’t feel protective toward him except when he told her about Nathalie and Heather.

  Alistair was always so sure of himself, so in control and unwavering in his positions and ideas. He seemed bigger than life. But lying there, he looked so vulnerable. So in need of care and love.

  She sat beside him on the sofa, lightly caressing his hair, as she savored the wine.

  His brows drew tight and his hands clenched in his lap as his breathing became rough. He opened his forest-green eyes, startled, searching for her.

  “I’m sorry I woke you,” she whispered.

  He blinked and straightened himself on the sofa. “Nae, it’s okay,” he shook his head. “I guess I’m tired. I didn’t sleep very well last night.” He rubbed his eyes and picked up the book from the side table, leafing through it in silence.

  Sophia peered at the page he had stopped on. She had marked a sentence. ‘Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation.’

  He flicked his gaze at her and back to the book.

  Hmm, not good. Not good at all. “So, what do you want to do?”

  “It’s up to you.” His fingers touched the marked line as he answered her, absentminded. “Anything. I’m not really hungry.” And you won’t be either after I tell you the rest of my wretched story.

  She studied his expression as she poured him some wine and handed him the glass, “What is it, Alistair?”

  “Nothing,” he said, drinking the wine, avoiding her eyes. “Hmm, this is good.” He picked up the bottle and feigned interest in it. “You have a peculiar way of reading.” Where is my courage? “I’ve never seen anyone so thoroughly mark and comment a book.”

  “Les Misérables has lots of interesting passages. Many intertwined plots with many different characters.” Alistair Connor, I know you by now. There’s something nagging you. Sophia sipped her wine as she watched Alistair run his hand over the back of his neck, nervously.

  Tell her the whole truth. “Aye, the main thread is the story of the ex-convict…”

  “Yes. Jean Valjean…” she supplied, wondering where the conversation would lead.

  “Aye. Do you believe it is possible?”

  “What?” What? What are you really asking me?

  “That by a magnanimous gesture of a fellow man, the bishop, in this case, the warped spirit of a convicted man could be redeemed?” Can I be too? “Valjean was blinded by bitter rage for being condemned for so many years by stealing a loaf of bread. Such a small act of despair.” He kept his eyes glued on the book while he quietly spoke, as if he were talking to himself.

  “An act of despair? Even though it was committed in despair, it was still a crime. And he had to pay for it. The issue was that his punishment was disproportionate to the crime. He served nineteen years before he was put on parole. On parole, for the rest of his life.”

  You didn’t answer my question, Counselor. “But do you believe he could be saved, spiritually speaking? That someone who had committed that many sins, who was so degraded, could nonetheless be led to believe in the righteous way?”

  Hmm. What do you want to hear? Innocent or guilty? “Yes, I do believe it. Valjean is guided to the light once more,” she stressed the last two words, “because he was a good man. His intentions were never evil, despite his crime.”

  “Let’s assume he could be saved…” He raked a hand in his hair, unsettled.

  “He was saved, Alistair Connor. More than once. It was as if…all he needed was a second chance. And he was given second chances throughout his life. And he took them all; the bishop’s kind gesture, the gardener at the convent who was a refugee are just two of them. Loving and caring people who weren’t misled by his appearance, or his disguises, extended him a hand which he took and used it to better himself.”

  A second chance. “But even having accepted a new path, he never could escape his dark past, could he? Javert, I mean.”

  Uh-uh. Sophia waited for him to continue, but it was clear Alistair wanted an answer to his question. “No, he could not because Javert could never understand the power of redemption. He was unyielding, strict, blinded by the supposedly infallible nature of the law. His suicide is proof of his incomprehension. And also the absence of a kind bishop to lead him onto the good path.” She took the book from his hands and started looking for a specific passage. “We must believe there’s always a chance for those who want to be saved. And this book is all about appearances, disguises, understanding and redemption; Jean Valjean’s, French society’s and even Javert’s. The police officer, who was obsessed with right and wrong, spent all his life trying to atone for his parents’ sins by being irreproachable. And, even though he was wrong in the eyes of religion, he redeemed his own sin, the lack of understanding, of goodness, of mercy, by committing suicide because he couldn’t bear the agony of living between his duty to the law and his debt to Valjean.”

  “You know the book well.” Alistair drank some more wine.

  Oh, yes, I do. I’m still trying to redeem myself. But no one’s giving me a hand to hold onto. Sophia sighed softly and mused, “One can always say that Javert is our conscience. The ever-lurking presence of the law and our own condemnation. The tension between who we were and who we are and who we can be. Javert represents that inescapable, shameful past that forever haunts and pursues one’s conscience. There isn’t a worse judge than a guilty conscience. Javert is the man of the law, and…there are no surprises with the law. The principle of retribution is simple and monotonous, like Euclidean logic. It’s closed to all alternatives and shut up against divine or human intervention. Indeed, Javert represents the merciless application of the law, the blind Justice
that in the end is befuddled by hope and the possibility of redemption without punishment.” She almost gasped the last word as she understood why he had picked up the book.

  She looked up to find Alistair’s gaze locked on her face. She settled her leg on the sofa, put her hand on his cheek and said softly, “Does redemption always have to be achieved through violence and punishment or is it possible through gentler traits, such as love, understanding and peace?”

  Will you give me a second chance? Alistair closed his eyes and leaned his face on her hand.

  “No one is past redemption, Alistair Connor, if one wills it.”

  So optimistic, Sophia. He had never wanted to believe in someone’s opinion so much. He felt like crying such was the despair and the hope that warred within him.

  “What is it?” she asked softly. “Talk to me.”

  He looked out of the window. Rain poured outside as if the weather understood his mood. Alistair spoke quietly, “I need to tell you something.”

  “Tell me then.” Sophia straightened herself on the sofa and looked at him. The despair she saw in his face sent a cold shiver through her spine and dread pooled in her heart. “What is it?”

  “I…I didn’t tell you my whole story.” He swirled his wine in the glass and stared at it for a long time. “I never explained to you how I discovered that Heather was cheating on me.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck again.

  Sophia’s heartbeat increased to a thousand per minute. Oh, please, leave Heather’s ghost outside my home. “You don’t need to. It’s an unpleasant subject so…”

  “Well, I never claimed to be sane, did I?” Alistair refilled her glass with wine and blurted the truth before he could repent. “Heather…she gave me a rare STD, Mycoplasma genitalium. The usual tests didn’t detect it. The treatment started too late. After more than a year, it was successful, but…the prolonged infection…” He was watching her face carefully, waiting for the shock to appear. “Sophia, I’m sterile.”

  Sophia paled and didn’t utter a word. She was incapable of speaking, of any kind of coherent thought.

  Unbidden, an image took shape in her mind—a large, black-haired, rugged man sprawled on the rug of her TV room with a dark-haired boy, the spitting image of his father, lying on his chest. She heard the child’s giggles over a deeper rumbling laughter—she could see them, there, only a few feet away from her. She almost reached out to touch them.

  In her mind, she did. She stretched out her hand to the man’s familiar shoulder, hard and stable as rock. Light shined on their black windblown locks. Unable to help herself, completely fascinated, she reached out, hesitantly, for the child’s face. And beautiful forest-green eyes so like his father’s blinked playfully at her. As she watched the scene, she felt a chilling cold spread through her whole body.

  She prayed. Prayed for a booming voice to say that Alistair was not sterile. That it was all a huge mistake. But then a horrible black shadow fell over the room and extinguished the light. It swallowed the image whole, banishing it to the realm of unattainable dreams.

  Emotion welled up, unlike any she’d known. Tears filled her eyes and she almost sobbed with the grief that permeated her soul. Dazed and faint, she shook her head.

  There. I knew it. “Say something,” he pleaded in a whisper, afraid to touch her and be repelled. “Anything…”

  “Are you sure?” Was all she could ask in a voice so low that he more divined than heard the words.

  He breathed deep and told her about the awful day when Doctor Ben had given his final verdict. His voice was so laden with pain that Sophia shoved her own deep down in her soul. “There’s no doubt. I can’t have any more children.”

  A thousand thoughts invaded her mind as she tried to sort out what she knew about the disease. Nothing came to her mind. Sophia had never worried about STDs. But she made a mental note to gather all the information she could about it. “And why—” Why would you think it would matter to me?

  “I’m sorry,” he interrupted her. Why am I telling you this only now? He ran his fingers through his hair, humiliated. “I should have told you from the beginning.” Christ! “But it makes me feel…less of a man. Our relationship is getting serious and I know you want more children. I don’t want you to become more involved, if I can’t fulfill your dreams.” He shrugged self-deprecatingly, but watching her closely for a reaction. “I think it’s only fair so you can decide if you want to conti—”

  Sophia put a finger on his lips. “You didn’t let me finish my question.” She felt a sharp pain slice her heart again and again. “Why do you think it would matter to me?”

  What? He remained silent, as if struck by a blow.

  Her voice was soothing when she asked, “If it were the other way round, would you not have me? Would it be over for you?”

  He gasped, indignant and scowled at her, “I would have you in any way, Sophia.”

  She scooted closer to him. “So would I.” Her fingers interlaced with his and she squeezed gently. “So will I.”

  “But, my love, I don’t want—”

  “Shhh,” she put her fingers on his mouth and browsed the book. “Here, read.”

  Alistair read the passage she was pointing at.

  And read again.

  He raised his eyes seeking her help, because he wished it to be true but needed confirmation.

  She knew that the help he was asking was not for translation. His French was better than hers. Anyway, she read out loud in English, “‘You no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.’” She looked up and fixed his gaze with hers. “The bishop bought Valjean’s soul when he gave him the two candlesticks, because it was what Valjean needed. Now, Alistair Connor, I’m buying your soul. It’s not such a high price to pay, is it?”

  “Not being able to have children?”

  She smiled softly, “That’s only one way of having children. There are others. We could adopt.”

  I have been so ignorant. His chest constricted at the kindness of this beautiful woman. This is what real love is all about.

  Chapter 17

  London, The City

  Ashford Steel Industries

  Tuesday, March 23, 2010

  10:08 a.m.

  “Mr. Ashford?” Scott asked.

  Ethan blinked, focusing on his assistant, who had just interrupted his musings.

  “May I come in, sir?” Scott asked, with a big grin on his thin face.

  “Yes, of course.” Ethan nodded, already intrigued by what his assistant had to say. His smiles were very rare as he seemed to always be afraid of Ethan’s opinion.

  Scott entered the room and put the folder he was carrying in front of Ethan. “Sir, Mrs. Chanda, the pres—”

  “I know who she is, Scott,” Ethan said impatiently. “What about her?”

  “Sir, it’s wonderful. They have already created a new strategy for the contribution you wanted to make in India and China and she just called saying they are ready to discuss it with you. I took the liberty of scheduling them for Friday, at eleven, here, if it is okay with you, sir.”

  “Good.” A smile spread over Ethan’s now permanently shaved face. He turned to his computer and quickly scanned his schedule for that day. Scott had already booked the hour. “I’m sure you made certain that Ms. Leibowitz is going to be at the meeting.”

  “Mrs. Chanda said that Ms. Leibowitz is personally supervising this project. I think, sir, that we should plan a charity gala event to launch it. Maybe a black-tie ball. The Leibowitz Foundation and Ashford Steel together.”

  “That has a nice ring to it, Scott. I’ll talk about it with Sophia. Please, make reservations for lunch after the meeting. At one o’clock. At L’Atelier. Inform Chef Olivier that I’ll be celebrating a business transaction and that I want the last table by the living wall. Scott, make sure that Sophia and I are both seated on the sofa. I don’t want
a single table.”

  “Sir, perhaps a restaurant with a private and cozy room?”

  “Hmm. No, I don’t think so.” Ethan thinned his lips and shook his head. “Sophia is still with MacCraig. She wouldn’t like it. You can start planning the charity ball. Show me your ideas before the meeting so I can talk her into it.”

  Scott put his narrow shoulders back and puffed his thin chest, proud of himself. “Yes, sir. I’ll make sure the Leibowitz and Ashford ball is as spectacular as the two people who name it.”

  “Please inform Carter that I have scheduled a conference call with Mr. Chang from Ashford China at ten p.m. today, and that I’ll need him.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ashford. I’ll stay later too, preparing everything for the ball.” Scott smiled inwardly. “Ah, and I have news. Good news. Ghost has already started to work on the Leibowitz network.”

  Ethan smiled like a child that had been given a much wanted toy. “Good, Scott. Very good. Keep me informed, please.”

  “Of course, Mr. Ashford.” There was no doubt in Scott’s mind that his boss’s weakness was Sophia Leibowitz. And to keep him pleased and the bonuses coming into his bank account, he would do everything. Anything.

  Atwood House

  Wednesday, March 24, 2010

  7:28 p.m.

  “No, Alistair, I can’t.” Sophia propped the handset between her cheek and her shoulder as she walked to her bookshelf looking for a book. “Not tonight.”

  “Again?” I shouldn’t have told her. She is keeping me away. “Sophia, I miss you. Somewhere simple, something quick.”

  It has been only two days. “Alistair, my dear…I’m tired. My day was just terrible. I got stuck in a huge traffic jam on the way back from Cambridge; Edward is still ill; and my computer crashed twice at the end of the day.” She singled out the book she was looking for and walked back to her desk. “I brought some work home, but Gabriela demanded my attention. I’m reviewing a pro bono case that Paul Evergreen discussed with me today.”